Wednesday, December 23, 2009

I'm totally an elitist tank. (or jerk, if you'd like to put it in those terms). Thanks to Dechion for spelling that out. And this goes out to all the DPS who I've kicked from my LFG groups over the last few weeks.

Know this, DPSers: I care only for completing the first daily random quest. That's it. I have almost 300 emblems of triumph, and I have nothing I want to buy with them. I don't care about chain running this for emblems. I only care about those two emblems of frost. To get those, I want to spend about 30 minutes of time in almost perfect silence methodically killing everything that comes our way. If the healer's comfortable, I'll do it in my DPS gear so it goes faster yet.

And anything that impedes this will be kicked. Some notables:

I don't have patience for DPS that want to go at a different pace than I'm comfortable with. My goal in doing these LFG runs is to make sure that we finish the end boss reasonably quickly without wiping, because I get to do these once a day and that's it. I have about 30 minutes to do that. If you choose to be cute and pull another group and think you're being helpful and you're not a member of my guild, you can honestly go find another tank who will put up with your shenanigans. Enjoy your 15-25 minutes of finding another group.

I don't honestly care if you're not doing good DPS as long as you don't wipe the raid because you're doing something wrong. I don't really care what your gear is; the only 5-man that your gear might matter on is Halls of Reflection, and there I generally care more about the healer's gear than yours. I'm happy to drag you around with your sub 1k DPS and get you emblems as long as you don't impede me. Because I outgear the stuff we're doing by 4 tiers of content. This stuff is easy. Most of the time this stuff doesn't require a healer if I'm tanking. And that's not egotistical; I'm not some stellar tank. I'm just a stellar-geared tank and can get away with that.

I don't have patience with loot whores either, but I also don't care that much. There's literally nothing that could drop from these 5-mans that I'd be interested in save the hilt, and I'd only be interested in that so I could sell it. If you roll need on every single item, fine. As long as you keep up and suck only a little bit, that's good. I'd prefer you roll greed so I can DE anything and everything.

I don't really care if whatever idiotic thing you as a DPS did was successful; if it made me annoyed or mad or wiped us or even threatened to wipe us, I'll vote to kick you. I recognize that it's much harder to find a good tank than a good DPS, and I can find a group instantly; you can take 20 minutes of your time to do the same. Yes, this is unfair. Yes, this means I have more power than I reasonably should. I'll happily abuse that power for my own selfish desires (a fast, efficient run) and if you don't like it, find another group...in 20 minutes.

I don't really care about doing optional bosses or not, as long as it doesn't take longer than 30 minutes for everything.

I'm not interested in exploiting a bug to make an encounter easier. It's already pretty easy. If you are, good luck finding that group.

If you're the DPS and you're worried that my health is too low because it's only 32k in my DPS gear, you can and will be kicked. The only person that should be concerned is the healer, and I've already checked with them to make sure it's cool. Complain about this at your own peril.

I think you're a piece of shit if you bail on Oculus, CoS, or HoR. Especially Oculus, which is one of the fastest dungeons out there if you know at all what you're doing. But hey, chances are you sucked if you leave anyway, and it's not my 15 minutes of time you're wasting.

If you die, it's your fault. It's not mine, and it's not the healer's. It's yours. Even when it isn't.

I don't have patience for people who won't ask questions on how to do things if they don't know. If they do, I'll happily explain or point them to someone who can, as many readers who have rolled an alt on my server to talk to me can attest to. If they don't and then complain if I give them hints or tell them what to do, that's on them, not on me. Especially if you're a feral and doing it wrong.

If you're not familiar with Oculus, here are two things you can do: pick a bronze drake and always follow me. On that bronze drake, simply shoot the boss until he goes unhittable, then follow me some more. That's it.

No, I'm not interested in doing some random achievement unless it is really, really easy (like herald Volajz) or something we'd want to do anyway. I don't really want to do 5 bronze drakes on Oculus on a pug. I really don't want to do 100 zombies. I really don't want to not DPS down portals on Nexus. Just collect your purples and move on.

I am willing to allow you to complete your quests for random heroics as long as you do it in a timely fashion and don't care that we're pulling mobs while you get your silver bars or troll sweat or free slaves or whatever.

Anything racist will get you kicked.

Anything sexist will get you kicked.

Most homophobic stuff will get you kicked. Note that I really don't like the 'that's so gay' phrase, but I recognize that I won't be able to convince everyone about the evils of it so I tend to grin and bear it as part of the stupid stuff people say nowadays. I just tell them to get off my lawn and deal with it.

And finally - it is not fun time happy stuff to pull a boss while I'm tanking a trash mob, then come running to me and expect me to tank it. Yes, I'm aware that I probably can survive 8 mobs and a boss at once without too much difficulty. You're still not the one who should be pulling.

Now - if you are a good, obedient, and nice DPS who isn't idiotic, you'll get a tank who has 245+ gear in most every slot, is gemmed/enchanted properly, can have 55k health whenever they need to and has done every single heroic multiple times as every single position. And that tank enjoys chain pulling and if a healer needs mana, would rather innervate them and move on. Your run should take no more than half an hour (even the loltastic ones like CoS or Oculus) and I'll happily trade gear you want and I've won back to you if you think you'd like it for some reason.

I do all of these things because I can. Because right now, I have the power. I'm sure in the future I'll be put in my place and be begging for good DPS/interrupters/AoEers to join me, and the joke will be on me, mwahaha.

75 comments:

I haven't been playing WoW lately in the same capacity as I have in the past (largely because of time constraints), but you pretty much summed up exactly how I feel about tanking random dungeons with random people - although I'm a lot less forgiving RE: DPS because it's stupidly easy.

You've picked two of my pet hates also. People wanting to do random achievements when they clearly have no idea at all what is involved or how hard or tedious it might be, and people running ahead to pull bosses for no reason.

"No, I'm not interested in doing some random achievement unless it is really, really easy (like herald Volajz) or something we'd want to do anyway. I don't really want to do 5 bronze drakes on Oculus on a pug. I really don't want to do 100 zombies. I really don't want to not DPS down portals on Nexus. Just collect your purples and move on."

OMG THIS!!!!!

THIS DRIVES ME NUTS, I'M HERE TO CARRY YOUR ASS THROUGH THE HEROIC, NOT GET YOU SOME ACHIEVEMENT AND TITLE.

Wow. To be honest, I think you are really taking this too seriously. I'm honestly horrified by the sheer number of DDs you have kicked over the last few weeks. Come off it! Yes, you are the tank, yes you are wanted, but does it give you the right to do whatever you want?

I'm sorry if I offended you, but seriously, I feel sorry for all those DDs who have been kicked, and for what? For nothing. I've been running dozens of random dungeons, and never has there been the need to kick (except for long disconnects).

Runy - sob :( I've missed you posting. Time constraints do suck, though WotLK is a lot friendlier to constraints like that than it's ever been. Hope you write more soon, and happy holidays.

Gestalt - it used to annoy me, but now I just think 'neat' and move on.

spinksville - it's weird that the achieves are the one thing that bug me so much, but they do. Especially when they're all whiny about it. I remember all the hard times and banding with friends we had to do to get those done, and it was...tough. But it was doable, and we did it in Naxx gear; how hard can it be now? But no, a random heroic means that we're going to spend the time to try and kill Moorabi the 'right' way. Ugh.

Samuel - ditto.

Askevar - I think that's a good point. I also think that if tanks and healers are in short supply, blizzard should have done what they said they were going to do and reward tanks/healers/leaders more for doing so. Why not incentivize it via the game? But I guess instant queues are a pretty decent incentive.

Sixx - that was a bit cheeky, but it's often how I feel. I do recognize that sometimes I'll fuck up and a DPS will die because I didn't grab something quickly, but more often than not it's their fault.

Mowe - I think you took this a bit more seriously than I intended. I've actually only kicked two people; one because they started making racist remarks, and one because they pulled the first boss in HoL while I was tanking the first pull and then promptly died, and THEN lied about it. That's it. I've been honestly not really tempted outside of that, other than perhaps the mage who fell off the cliff during the HoR chase sequence and the DK who wasn't in frost presence while tanking CoS.

At the same time though - DPS needs to understand what the situation is right now. They have zero power. They're ridiculously oversupplied, and it is almost instantaneous to find another DPS to fill a slot that one vacates. That's more to the point, and if you choose to be a DPS who wants to get cute, don't be surprised if that bites you in the ass.

Also, what is DD? I've never seen that term before. Damage Dealer? Is that the Deutsch version?

Dechion - yours was a lot better. And I figured for the most part we do see eye to eye. I don't like people going off on less experienced people because they've not studied like madmen on the intarwebs. Telling them that they're wrong is one thing - but there are so many ways to be constructive about it, and many choose to feed their ego instead. And that sucks.

At the same time, I don't have a huge amount of patience for lolkids who aren't willing to learn either.

My thoughts exactly, it's sad that I will do 30-40% of the damage in a heroic but I really don't care as long as the run is quick and painless, which they normally are if the healer doesn't go oom every pull.

I may like my runs fast, 15-20mins at most, but I don't mind killing an optional boss if somebody in group needs something and it'll only take an extra minute or 2 to clear to however I WILL NOT do some random achievement that is going to slow down my run, I'm there for Frost badges and nothing else.

"it's weird that the achieves are the one thing that bug me so much, but they do. Especially when they're all whiny about it. I remember all the hard times and banding with friends we had to do to get those done, and it was...tough. But it was doable, and we did it in Naxx gear; how hard can it be now? But no, a random heroic means that we're going to spend the time to try and kill Moorabi the 'right' way. Ugh."

I think this is why I don't like it, Because my room mate and I got our achievements over the course of several months, almost a year. And we went through tons of trials getting groups or friends together to and pouring over videos just to get it. And now just because we are over geared (we still just enter the lfg together, he heals) people expect us to wanna just randomly do the achieves with people we don't even know, who aren't even from our server. As he says, "We are pulling you through this anyways, don't push your luck."

The sad thing is I've run across just as many terrible tanks and healers as I have DPS. It's not a problem specific to DPS, it's just a problem with bad play in general. However, the tanks tend to be the most emo about things, with the healers being the most tolerant. DPS is a crap-shoot as far as what they'll put up with.

Heh, does it really take 25 minutes of finding a tank? I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes as dps, but maybe the ratio on EU servers is a lot different than the American ones. So yeah, we're not exactly stressed to take shit from self aggrandized tanks or healers, in fact I've kicked a couple myself, went into bear form and 4-manned the stuff to the end in peace and quiet.

Also, it seems that the gear rating system or whatever they have in place there doesn't seem to be working so well for you then? I can't remember a heroic taking me longer than 15-20 minutes unless it's one of the new ones, 30 minutes feels awfully slow.

Not to mention, really, if you're in a good guild and not obsessing about the stupid noncombat pet, there's no reason not to nab 1-2 people from guild and just plug the gaps with randoms. The people I raid with are good enough to carry certain amount of idiots through a heroic, I expect your guildies are even more skilled, so if you can, you should be able to save yourself from exposure to terribads.

We do have the power as tanks, which is sadly being abused by some tanks to be way bigger jerks then you discribe.I'd hate to think the experience that some newer players will end up with when having to deal with one of them.

I hear your oath.We are tanks, we have the power, the others don't. Till LFG will be like this, nothing can tell use what or how to do something.Instead of whining, roll a tank, otherwise shut up.God, i love being a bear.

I occasionally get grouped with that 'special' kind of dps that:- jumps constantly- has "GO GO GO!!!!!" macro'd- gets out dps'd by the healer- feels the need to pull 'for' me- berates any healer, but especially MY healer from my guild

I'm thinking instead of booting them once they've passed my tolerance for this, I should link this post ... then boot them.

As a tank myself, its completely frustrating to find DPS not understand their role in a PUG and expect us to carry them. They should consider themselves lucky to be placed in a group with a competent tank to begin with.

When I ran on my Enhance sham today, I encountered an Unholy DK dual wielding Tankards O' Terror with two pieces of defense gear. He claimed to be our tank.

After wiping to the first set of adds, it turned out he hadn't even completed the instance on Heroic.

So forgive us tanks if we seem a little bitchy for providing a needed quality service.

Love this & I agree with everything. I tank the randoms in cat gear also, I usually have at least 1 dps (husband) and a healer from our guild and we pug 1 or 2 dpsers as needed. When I start, I don't stop till the end. I do enjoy beating the pugs in dps. =)

Rofl, loved this post. I more or less think this for every Heroic I do on my pally/druid. Though I'd rather not do any optional bosses if I can and I've only bailed on HoR once because the healer and 2 other DPS just plain sucked.

Kalon, I appreciate how much time you put into your blog and I'm an avid reader, especially for your gear ratings and updates on new raiding topics and stuff. But seriously, you do NOT seem like a tank I'd like to pug with. On my feral, I'm a damned well geared tank and I don't treat others like crap. You carry this notion that you're 'better' than others and are worth more because of your gear and status as a tank. You CLEARLY do in fact believe this as you admit to be an elitist, which means exactly that.

But, whatever. You can feel like that. But seriously, when I'm chain running heroics on my dps alts for gear and I come across tanks with similar attitudes, it kills my 'fun.' Seriously, even though the rest of your group are pugs, they're people, and more often than not, they're cool people who arn't terrible players. Most of the time dpsers arn't doing sub 1k. They're doing 2k or more, and hell, 2k is more than enough to run heroics in an efficent amount of time.

I'll give one example of a great pug I ran recently. I get in with my poorly geared guildie's alt tank with 30k hp buffed. We have mediocre dps (2.5kish) and my hunter's 3.5kish dps, and an insanely geared druid healer. Like 5.6k GS, with the legendary mace. We ran efficently, had fun with chatting and stuff, and the druid healer was one of the nicest persons I know. He was NOT an elitist with this "my gear is better than yours and I don't care about you undergeared pugs" mentality that other tanks like you have. In fact, when we finished PoS, everyone was willing to run H HoR, and we did that fast too.

Anyways, what Im getting at is that heroics can be fun and efficient if you treat others with some decency and respect. You don't have to be an elitist jerk and treat people like crap because of a low gear score. I hate being greated like crap on my alts because people look at my gear score. Im a very competent tank who is ALSO way overgeared, and I treat my pugs with respect and a fun attitude, and RARELY have problems. Everyone is benefitted when the tank takes this attitude and leads the group with a respectful and fun attitude who might be willing to help with a random achievement or w/e.

I have actually switched to DPS in my randoms because it annoyed how slowly stuff was dying some runs. Still have minimal wait times which gives me a chance to check the AH or do my JC daily real quick before it pops.

What annoys me is being labled a "selfish f#ck" because i roll need on BoE blues, Glyph books, and other similar items that drop mid run. This is just common loot practice on my server. The rest of the time i hit disenchant just like everyone else

It pisses me off when the tank is cool with it but the healer and other 2 dps start whinning in party chat and almost casue a wipe as was the case in HoL the other day (actually they did die, the tank and i lived) I let it go, but made a comment about ther lack of focus WHILE I rezzed them.

I didnt bother me as much till after the run was over and i noticed i did more damage then the other 2 dps combined on every fight and that the DK tank was 2nd overall.

I realize I outgear most Tanks and dps I come across and it doent bother me if I have to carry some ppl looking to better themselves. It does bother me when sub-par geared people starting running their mouths.

"They should consider themselves lucky to be placed in a group with a competent tank to begin with."

Too bad that about 1 out of every 10 tanks I've run across in the LFG tool has been even remotely competent. Sure, *you* may be a good tank, but *you* are definitely the minority. I don't even run the LFG daily as DPS unless I can get a guildy to tank it, because the tank pool is that bad.

It's great that tanks feel like they can be jackasses and whatnot, because, basically, they can. However, you'll continue to use the LFG tool, continue to find shitty healers and DPSers, and continue on with your frustration. Because of the amount of shitty tanks out there, this is one amazing DPS / Healer that you'll never get the pleasure of running with. I absolutely avoid the tool unless I'm already grouped with a tank.

I have followed your posts for ages and love the gear lists etc, but right now you are sounding jaded. Maybe you should have some time off WoW and see if that makes you feel a little more forgiving and generous, and bring some pleasure back to your gaming. It seems to have brought out a nasty streak in you that is very unappealing. All that "kick" talk makes you sound like a jerk, frankly.

@ dfvanden - not really. He sounds like he wants people to behave and not be jerks. Franky the last 4 rules say it all. If you do that in my group, poof you are gone. I will rather forgo getting frost badges then help someone covered in those points get anything.

"You don't have to be an elitist jerk and treat people like crap because of a low gear score."

I'm sorry, but what part of 'I don't care about your gear or your DPS' didn't you understand?

I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. If you actually want to sit around and do random emotes at the start of the dungeon, that's totally fine with me as long as that doesn't end up wiping the run and we can reasonably do the rest of the content. As has been stated a bunch by many others above - I can do enough damage by myself to make up for any meh DPS, and I don't really care about it.

What I want is an efficient, quick and painless run. The only difference between before and now is that as a tank, I don't have to deal with people being total dicks. I don't have to tolerate them in order to get something done. I can kick them, and it's great to even have that power.

Now, do I use it? Not very often; I've kicked two people so far from runs. Most of the time I'm doing it in guild anyway. But knowing that I can use it, and I don't have to deal with racist asshats or pugs that go and pull bosses while I"m working on a trash group - it's great.

As to the time (since people seemed to wonder about that) typically 30 minutes is the longest I've ever had on some of the new instances. Most are far less; I can do Gundrak in 12 assuming we have competent folks.

dfvanden:"Maybe you should have some time off WoW and see if that makes you feel a little more forgiving and generous, and bring some pleasure back to your gaming." Maybe. Though honestly, I don't think this is any different than me ranting about douchebags in guild that wouldn't grind rep for their shoulder enchants or show up to raid with green-quality gems. I don't have a lot of patience for that sort of thing. This honestly is great for me; I don't have to bite my tongue if someone's being a dick. And really - if you disagree with any of the points, what points are they? DPS pulling bosses? People saying racist crap in party? What specifically am I such a dick for wanting to not group with people for?

And really - if you disagree with any of the points, what points are they? DPS pulling bosses? People saying racist crap in party?

You asked:

I don't have patience for DPS that want to go at a different pace than I'm comfortable with.

to be honest the healer has the ultimate control over this one. If they want to go quicker then you do then to bad they really have no choice. and if they want to go slower (something i have never seen) they can control this by slowing down their dps. In the grand scheme of things the slow point in any run tends to be gauged by the tank anyway...dps generally keeps up and how you are geared heals should never have a problem. This is a non-issue and if you are losing patience then that problem is with you not the DPS.

I don't have patience with loot whores either, but I also don't care that much.

I don;t care about loot in these things either. You should care about fairness...but no one has any idea if you care or don't care with the above contradictory statement. Why even say it. It seems petty

I don't really care if whatever idiotic thing you as a DPS did was successful; if it made me annoyed or mad or wiped us or even threatened to wipe us, I'll vote to kick you.

Aside from running full ahead and trying to pull the whole instance I think this is near impossible for dps to do with the gear you have on. DPS would have to try to wipe the party to wipe the party. I which case of course kick but that goes without saying. But your statement is a complaint about a near impossibility. So why complain about it? Again petty.

I'm not interested in exploiting a bug to make an encounter easier. It's already pretty easy. If you are, good luck finding that group.

Another impossibility. DPS can chat about exploits all they want but in every case the Tank can just ignore it and run in and run the fight how they want. No need to kick over this. This one is super petty.

If you're the DPS and you're worried that my health is too low because it's only 32k in my DPS gear, you can and will be kicked.

Kick them over this? Jesus how hard it is to type "healer and I worked it out...we will go faster with me in dps gear" It is not as if this is a common thing. You are abandoning simple common courtesy simply to not type out a 5 second message to those who ask about it. Plus if DPS are concerned about your gear they are concerned about wiping....not a bad thing for DPS to think about. This is no longer petty. You need to take a break from playing.

I don't have patience for people who won't ask questions on how to do things if they don't know.

There are maybe 4 instances in which you have to explain anything. And they are easy to explain. Every other fight in the 5 man game in your gear does not matter what anyone knows...you can run and gun it as the tank. Once again petty plus not explaining the 4 instances that need explaining will probably slow your run time. Wipes are always time consuming. Get over yourself for the sake of yourself.

Choosing the kill targets is ALSO my job and if people have problems working out how to hit the one with the skull on it (and i only use a skull target when they've proven themselves incapable of coping with aggro management without help) then we have an issue. And then someone needs to learn to target properly, or someone needs to leave. And the person leaving can be them or it can be me, if the rest of the party is ALSO composed of idiots.

Using special abilities unhelpfully (MD, Army, etc) is also amazingly stupid. If i needed them, I'd ask. If I didn't ask, stay the hell away from that button.

And finally, any achievements you may want to do should be mentioned BEFORE WE START THE RUN. Especially Zombiefest. And even then, I'm unlikely to want to do them.

Basic rules: Don't be a dick and we'll get along fine.

Such a good inspiration for a rant, Kalon :D This may have built up a head of steam while I'm working on getting my pet without going insane...

Also, anyone who thinks that the way Kalon wants to run is wrong? You're free not to group with him. Bring your own tank if you want.

It's really a very pointless rant though, because like you say yourself you have only kicked two people, it's kinda hard to see why that would merit the need to come up with a impressive 20 Rules That Will Get You Kicked list, it just feels needlessly arrogant. In a 'I'm actually much nicer and completely reasonable, not like this harsh post implies, I just need to posture a bit'. Shrug.

Hmmm yes, people who think it's fun to pull for me are my pet peeve. I let them dip below half health before grabbing the mobs, to give them a nice wake-up ;)

I don't think you're being elitist, because you're not expecting some unreasonably high standard out of everyone. Don't be a dick and don't make things more difficult than they need to be is not too much to ask.

I haven't ever kicked anyone but I do have an internal "penalty volcano" and if you hit the top of that, you're going straight on my ignore list so I never have to see you again.

I have quit two groups where all three dps seemed intent on making my life extremely difficult, it wasn't worth the stress.

But seriously i hate groups that expect me to go all happy happy joy joy when im there to push the instance in 15 minutes or less.

I am actually not so formal as you that leave it clear from the start, i just start pulling and i wont stop till i see that i have received my 2 badges and if we wipe because of stupid things i would more likely leave group because as you said. LFG will pop as soon as i que up.

Its like this, im sorry but im not here to gear up your alts if you cant actually stay alive

I'm running 3 lv80s through for frost badge numminess and I gotta say I chuckle a little when I (as the tank) am pulling the best DPS as a bear. When I play my ele/resto shaman I'll start as healer and watch the meters. If I feel lazy I usually stay healer (especially if the dps is awesome!) otherwise I quickly switch to elemental and do the top dmg just to make things go faster. I don't mind carrying people if they don't do stupid things (get out of the frick'n poison patches!)

AMEN! I am in the same exact position and feel the same way. If DPS in my randoms give me shit about anything at all, I simply say "leave if you don't like X." When they do leave, I laugh, because I know they'll be waiting another 20 for a group. Mean? Whatever. As a tank for 5 years, I'm glad some good fortune came back my way.

"It's really a very pointless rant though, because like you say yourself you have only kicked two people, it's kinda hard to see why that would merit the need to come up with a impressive 20 Rules That Will Get You Kicked list, it just feels needlessly arrogant. In a 'I'm actually much nicer and completely reasonable, not like this harsh post implies, I just need to posture a bit'. Shrug."

Kobold (and others who said as much) - that's a reasonable point. I was in an annoyed mood when I had to kick some one and then came to a realization that I don't actually have to put up with nearly as much crap as I used to - and now, I actually have a viable tool that I can use so that I don't have to. That was pretty liberating.

I'm probably a mix of the two things. I'm likely not quite as bad as this list says, but I'm also most certainly less saintly than I may have let on. I do get annoyed with DPS who don't know mechanics and can't do things like hit their big shiny timestop button. But most of the time I say 'please someone hit timestop on the enrage' and try Oculus again.

Actually, scratch that; most of the time I'm with at least one or two other guildies and they're in a competition to see whether or not the healer from guild can out DPS the rest of the group.

ia - demon soul:"This is a non-issue and if you are losing patience then that problem is with you not the DPS."No, it's not. When the DPS is pulling another group of mobs while I'm tanking a group, it's not a non-issue. When they're pulling bosses, it's not a non-issue. When they claim it wasn't them, it's ALSO not a non-issue. These all happened to me recently and were a result of a retarded DPS who felt that we could go faster and decided to press the issue. Well..guess what - it takes time to res you too.

"Aside from running full ahead and trying to pull the whole instance I think this is near impossible for dps to do with the gear you have on. "

And yet DPS still try and do exactly that. Your near impossibility has happened to me at least twice since LFD. Maybe I'm unlucky. Or, given the popularity of this post - maybe I'm speaking to something that's happening quite often.

"Another impossibility. DPS can chat about exploits all they want but in every case the Tank can just ignore it and run in and run the fight how they want. No need to kick over this. This one is super petty."

You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. There are enough fights that require people to be on the same page that it can require everyone to be doing the strategy as written. For instance, HoR is much harder when one person stays behind Arthas while everyone else runs ahead due to the DPS requirements. If the DPS chooses to be a dick about it, they most certainly can.

"Kick them over this? Jesus how hard it is to type "healer and I worked it out...we will go faster with me in dps gear" "

It's much harder when they won't shut up about it and continue to complain and eventually pull some mobs to express their anger at me for not complying with their wishes. Again, something that happened to me.

"There are maybe 4 instances in which you have to explain anything. And they are easy to explain. "

Yes, they are. But at the same time - the expansion has been out for more than a year now. How unreasonable is it to assume everyone understands the instances now and what they're supposed to do? I can spend the minute explaining during a fight, but that goes against that whole 'gogogo' mentality. And 99% of the time it's redundant.

So why is it such a burden to have the person who is unclear actually SAY SO? You're saying that it's better for people who don't know what they're doing to never say anything and hope that someone graces them with the information they need? That's weak. Sorry. I'm happy to explain to folks when they need to know how to do something what to do, but I don't want to have to do it every time I run Oculus 13 months after the expansion's launched. I mean - were you explaining how SHalls worked when Sunwell hit and you were on a pug?

Thank you, Kalon, I vastly enjoyed this post. It takes a lot more effort, research, and time to be good tank than other roles for a 5-man, as the shortage of tanks, especially good tanks, shows. Most of the time groups expect tanks to be the strong players and the leaders, and many tanks oblige. So it makes me indignant when some bouncy lolkid comes in unprepared and almost useless to the group and then proceeds to waste my group's time as I am tanking. If I put up with carrying him or her, then s/he should have the courtesy to fall in line. It's a simple and fair trade off, and not ruining anybody's fun if they follow this unspoken agreement. There is no reason for good tanks, or good players of any role, to martyr themselves and put up with terrible play for the 'fun' of some rude or inconsiderate person, which anyone doing the things on Kalon's list would be termed. A kick is perfectly reasonable, and I don't understand people like the Anonymous claiming Kalon is elitist. If anything he's doing the bad players a favor and perhaps making them consider devoting some time to playing better so they have a chance feel good about having competitive dps/heals/whatever or to find better groups and raids before they make it onto their server's mental do-not-group-with-that-guy list.

This post is also therapeutic to all the tanks out there, frustrated with carrying ungrateful and under geared folks. It keeps them from giving up tanking outside the guild and and only pugging with that alt #25 dps in greens while watching tv and afk'ing every 3 seconds, then running into a boss with no idea even what instance they're in, since that seems to be acceptable for a dps, and anyone who says otherwise is 'elitist.' It is not acceptable and should not be encouraged, and a swift kick is to the benefit of all, even the one being kicked if s/he can learn something from it. Also, remember that it is a vote to kick now, so obviously whoever was disruptive enough to Kalon's way of running was also killing the mood for the rest of the group.

Now I am with Kalon in that I kick far fewer than I want to rant about, so I don't see how doing this charity work is to be frowned upon. And it is charity work, in a fair world each dps healer and tank would pull their weight equally, instead of some groups where I am tanking, topping the dps meter, and rezing the healer after he gets back online from a dc that lasted most of the 15 minute run. I don't point out every thing the people under-performing are doing wrong, in fact I am usually happy to make small talk or offer constructive suggestions, so the proper response would be to follow my lead and not give me any trouble. Sounds more than fair to me, and I follow this set up when on my dps characters. I don't even give mediocre tanks a piece of my mind, with whom I constantly have to use aggro dumps, maybe kite around or have a pet tank a bit just to stay alive -- as long as the tank moves and produces some sort of threat I am willing to put up with it because they fill a rare role. I would be happy to have Kalon as a tank any day and I'd have lots of fun just being a part of his smooth functioning team. Moral of the story is go hug a tank today so maybe there will be more of them to run with our dps alts. Thanks again, Kalon, for a wonderful post!

you have no sympathy for others now, and I will have no sympathy for you if the time ever comes

...assuming you're not telling people all these rules ahead of time. and if all you want is your two frost emblems a day, you're better off getting a few guildies or server friends to come with you and 99% of all the **** you're so upset and whining about won't happen

coldbear - errr, what? You'll have no sympathy when what? The racist asshats are in control and I meekly have to succumb to bigoted slurs in order to get my emblems?

Okay.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for DPS who decide that they'd like to tank. I don't have a lot of sympathy for those who throw a fit because I refuse to do Lessrabi. So it goes.

And no, I don't post a 6000 word instruction every time I tank a LFD. These are things that I assume people are going to know, and if they don't...that's fine. They'll learn.

You are right that most of the time I'm better off grouping with guildies and getting it done that way, and most of the time I try to do exactly that. My guild and my time are a bit different than others, in that I don't play wow 4 hours a night and can't always find a group to do the daily.

I'm not quite sure why you're so angry about this, but I can't control that.

well, us halfway competent tanks who overgear instances are in control now and I guess people should bow to you and be "obedient" to your will and every whim

Personally I haven't quite yet forgotten where I came from - you seem to have - and still have a bit of room for patience if someone asks about an inconvenient achievement because I too was that new guy once upon a time way back when.

You admit this situation is unfair but you will votekick anyone who makes a mistake if you might think even for a second that it was idiotic.

People never die because of you - you mean you never make mistakes? Ok, I guess your **** don't stink. For all your knowledge of mechanics and gear you can really piss off and the world of warcraft would be a better place.

You're willing to ALLOW me to complete quests? Gee thanks - that's so nice of you to let me do that in YOUR dungeon.

How about you just tone it down a bit and it would actually be a good article - instead of just losing my respect because you're writing like a straight-up ***hole?

Great post, and I agree with almost all of it. Unfortunately, some DPS are too dumb to realize they have a good thing going and will kick you before you get the chance to do the same to them.

I was doing H FoS for the Needle Encrusted Scorpion (My Mirror of Truth was waaaay outdated) and being a similarly geared feral tank to you, I was rocking nearly 40% of the damage, chain pulling, all that fun stuff. We got to the Spectral Wardens near the end and to avoid an inevitable face pull, I pulled the patrolling one outside of the tunnel to Devourer of Souls. The hunter, apparently oblivious to what I was doing, facepulled the other Warden which I picked up right away. We ended up wiping, due to lack of a decurser and a slightly undergeared healer, and right after the hunter asks... "y would u pull that one". I explained my reasoning, and proceeded to get kicked.

Yes - I, the main tank and group leader got kicked by the dime-a-dozen hunter who could barely sustain 2500 DPS (In almost full t9 gear) for having the audacity to pull a (technically unnecessary) mob that the hunter didn't want to kill.

Coldbear - I respect your talents and your passion, and I think you've done a great deal for the community. At the same time, you're telling me that I don't have a right to say 'no, I don't want to do that achievement' or vote to kick someone because they wiped a heroic due to their pulling 5 mobs and a boss ahead of us or because they thought harpoons were a rare drop on UP and wanted to sell them.

Both of those things have happened to me.

I admit that the post came off as me being a bit jerky, and it was emotionally driven. However, it isn't like I'm kicking people for suggesting to do achievements. I simply say 'no'. The important point here is that I don't want to waste my time more than I have to. Other people might, and more power to them - but for me, it means that I want to get in, do as little as possible and leave. And yes, that means I don't usually want to do hard achievements or wait 20 minutes for someone to do all their questing or whatever. If you feel that's bad, that's your choice; I personally think it's insulting to think that your time is more valuable than 4 other people's and assume the other 4 should just accept it.

My assumption is that everyone's time is very valuable and my goal is to maximize the value of their time.

I also think that it's pretty easy to tell when someone fucks up but genuinely didn't mean to and someone is being a deliberate dick because they think it's fun or don't care or whatever. I've run thousands of dungeons with hundreds of different people at this point; it's not hard to be able to spot the difference.

Also, when I started out 'back in the day' I still had done my research, I asked questions if I was unclear and I played cautiously. I don't see why this is such a horrible expectation of others.

Ultimately I can't control what you take out of my post. I will say this: it's hugely great for my sanity that I have the actual power to not have to deal with this kind of crap if it comes up. It is downright liberating to be able to deal with negative behavior by actually punishing said behavior in a way that has consequences. Instead of telling people to knock it off or simply ignoring the person, I can actually make them lose valuable time.

I want this tank to slap me in the face with their epeen. That was a rant on par with Gordon Geco from Wallstreet or one of those HOO-WAH speeches Al Pacino gives in his movies. "Yeah, Eff you, you little dps loozoors!" No "Ms. Congeniality" for this one. Bravo!

As a Holy Priest Healer that can easily keep up with such a well-geared tank, all I can say is that I wish I could be in your party every day. It would be a dream come true :p Your points are valid and even fair, IMO. The strange thing is that, as a healer, I actually feel the same way about a lot of things. It's nice to know that, out there, is someone who actually does understand how end-game players *should* probably all be thinking.

I think a lot of people missed the point. I loathe tanking heroics on my druid who needs NOTHING from them (also pushing 300 triumph emblems), but in order to be a good raider and get my tier gear to help the guild, I gotta do these heroics every day. Like you, I am in this to get the heroic done in 15 minutes. I have RL stuff and guild officer duties to attend to, and I want my heroics to go as quickly as humanly possible.

I don't have time to type in chat because I am mashing my swipe key too hard, chain pulling, and innervating the healer whenever I get the chance. If that makes me a cold, elitist jerk, so be it.

If people want 5 man achievements, I recommend they form a group on their own server in LFG/trade chat rather than just joining a random heroic. I don't think half of them even understand how achievements like Less-Rabi and the Voids work.

I know of some people who abuse the vote kick system (basically get 3 people in on it and troll people), but that's rare. You can't even vote kick someone until the 15 min dungeon CD is up.

Do you have rage problems with your bear spec on the 5-mans? Why run 5-man without Maul glyph?

I run 5 mans with a maul glyph. I have a stack of maul and growl glyphs and swap them as necessary. You just saw me when I had swapped to growl. :)

As to 5-mans, I won't lie to you: I hate the spec for it. It's a very good MT spec as rage is almost never an issue, but for dealing with adds or dealing with multiple mobs or (especially) when you overgear the content, it's really meh. It's like fighting through molasses. Every swipe costs 20. If you don't get enough crits, it's horrible and you lose mauls.

I'll be switching back to a more normal build since we got insanity, I think.

I've read through this post a few times, and while I can't honestly argue about any fact or idea, the attitude of it astounds me. Why do you run this with pugs and not guildies? If no one measures up to your standards, find people who do and schedule your time with them? Blizzard doesn't care if you go in alone or with a group, as long as you select random.

It seems to be that this would make you a lot happier and probably everyone that you group with would just as soon you do this as well.

I'm overgeared for these on my druid as well, but I too often have to explain the fights to overgeared tanks when running on an alt that apparently wouldn't measure up to your standards.

Well said! I too have been getting more and more idiots in pugs lately and have started vote-kicking them. I hate to be a jerk but it is the only way they will learn (at least I hope) as well as the only way for me to keep my sanity.

I've read through this post a few times, and while I can't honestly argue about any fact or idea, the attitude of it astounds me. Why do you run this with pugs and not guildies? If no one measures up to your standards, find people who do and schedule your time with them? Blizzard doesn't care if you go in alone or with a group, as long as you select random.

It seems to be that this would make you a lot happier and probably everyone that you group with would just as soon you do this as well.

I'm overgeared for these on my druid as well, but I too often have to explain the fights to overgeared tanks when running on an alt that apparently wouldn't measure up to your standards.

Grumpy, a few words.

First, I don't have a lot of time. I log on for raids and usually log out shortly afterwards. I get to do heroics in the morning while getting ready for work or right after raid. My guildies aren't on a lot then either; many are in the same boat as I am. So yes, ideally I'd run more with the guild than not. But that doesn't happen, so I end up doing PuGs.

Second, I'm not sure where you get the impression that no one measures up to my standards. I specifically stated multiple times how I don't care about the damage dealer's levels of DPS as long as they don't egregiously fuck up. I do look at the healer's gear so that I get a rough gauge of how fast I can go, but I've never thought about kicking one because they were undergeared. I do recommend to people that they do things like (for example) use Righteous Fury when tanking or go into defensive stance.

Is that a horrible standard to hold people to?

As to making people happy - the comments I get most of the time (if I get any) are on the order of this:"That was the fastest CoT I've ever done""I've never seen a tank do that much damage"And mostly: "thanks for a fast smooth run".

Most of the time things are silent and quick and efficient. It's when DPS try to get cute and pull bosses ahead of me or decide they'd rather make racial slurs than fight something that I have problems.

Thank you - this brightend up my day when I first read it, especially as I'd just quit from a group for the first time since the new system was implemented (Halls of Reflection: no-one responded to my question about where they would prefer to fight, a dps started the fight sequence and 3 players ingorned my request to get inside the room before the door closed. I decided there and then this was unlikely to be the sort of group to succeed in there!)

I read this in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner that I believed it to be written. I think the vast majority of tanks would count some of your points as pet hates - dps pulling on my behalf has to be my top annoyance. Respect your party and respect the instance seem to be the short version of the rules.

I've found that knowing that the option to remove is sufficiently empowering to stop having to use it.

I tend now to use tanking gear with dps trinkets for heroics. The fall in dps isn't that large and it saves the conflict about hps (then again my tanking set is my primary set so has better raw stats on it anyway).

Keep up the good work, so I can continue to use the ideas for myself just like an unfocussed dpser leeches emblems of the back of a decent bear tank :)

Great post! I'm a new tank, but even I recognize the power that tanks (and healers) have. I can que up as a tank and have no wait. Que up as DPS and I can go cook dinner and have a cigarette while I wait. I don't think its that wrong to know your value. More DPS should learn to respect the tanks and healers and adjust from there. Its really not like it use to be where you needed lots of CC from the DPS classes.

I just started my druid tank, and at level 30 I feel the same way as you do on heroics, and I'm still doing the vanilla instances. I always vote to kick if the dps think they need to pull things because they are going to slowly. If I take it slow it is because the healer isn't up to me pulling half a room. Or the worst, when they run away when they pull something I don't know about and get mad because 1) they pulled from another room, and 2) ran completely out of my LOS to help them even if i wanted to. Some people need to learn to set their focus or pull their targets from the tank.

My main is a shaman healer, and I LOVE doing my frost run with "elitist" tanks. Half the time the tank and I are running far ahead of the dps, that stop to drink, or want to stop and chit chat. I am fully effective with 60% mana on a boss pull, and I have run with some bears in dps gear, HP doesn't mean anything but you have some gear.

First off, I have a pretty good warrior tank that can easily blast through heroics, as our elitist Druid tank has described. Unless someone does something unusually obnoxious, rude or stupid, no one dies, no one gets kicked & the run is over in sub 30min. No drama, no need to be a jerk in most cases.

I don't see the reason for the abusive & unfair treatment being dished out & the pre-madona attitude of many tanks in LFG.

Sometimes it is the tanks fault when dps dies.

* the tank pulls 2 or more packs of mobs & decides to only hold aggro on a few of them.

* the party follows the tank through an area with wandering mobs. One gets pulled by proximity...and the princess tank refuses to take aggro because he did not "Explicitly" pull the mob. So he watches the mob rampage through the party.

* In H UP an over-geared tank didn't get his Blue Proto Drake...pulled the next batch of mobs & left the group mid-pull. Causing the wipe...he's probably already starting the next heroic...we're dead & waiting our 15-20minutes for the next run...Thank you...what a Great Player!

* Not to mention the number of times an Overgeared Tank will roll Need on a drop purely out of Greed when it's a big upgrade for another class.

My way or the high way...great attitude... I love being the tank...but it really Sux to be Dps these days. You realize you're making the game un-fun for 3 out 5 of the players in the group? If you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.

ThinkTank bio

About Me

Kalon likes playing tanks, no matter how hard he tries to fight it. He is not as hardcore as many but spends a lot of time thinking about WoW, and randomly rants about it now and then. He played formerly on the Argent Dawn (EU) server and was a founding member of Fire and Blood (Quel'Dorei) before joining Casually Serious, a guild devoted to hard core progression on only 8 hours of raiding time a week.
He is a devoted husband, father, and when he has the time programs software.